Prince Harry Gets Candid About Nude Vegas Pic, ‘Incognito’ Date with Meghan, and Royal Life Being a ‘Zoo’

Prince Harry is getting candid about royal life… again.

Harry sat down with Dax Shepard for a new episode of the “Armchair Expert” podcast, chatting about that infamous naked Las Vegas pic from 2012, growing up in the royal family, his life today, and a secret supermarket date with Meghan Markle.

Early in the interview, Shepard told him, “I’m really excited to meet you because, in full disclosure, I’m the most ill-informed person on the royal family, at least in my circle. You’re the only one I ever knew and simply because you were in those awesome nude photos in Vegas. And I literally said to myself, ‘This guy’s a party!’”

Harry responded, “I’m sure, you’re constantly looking for other people to go, sort of balance out your own behavior, right?” Adding, “It’s relatable!”

Dax insisted, “On top of that, I was like, ‘God! This motherf–ker’s got a good body!’ You are in tremendous shape.”

The prince replied, “Okay, now it’s getting weird,” recalling, “That was a few weeks before I went to Afghanistan.”

Later, when Dax told Harry he imagined life as a royal was like Jim Carrey’s 1998 film “The Truman Show,” where the main character discovers he’s actually the star of a reality show, Harry agreed. He said, "It's a mix between ‘The Truman Show’ and living in a zoo. The biggest issue for me was that, being born into it, you inherit the risk. You inherit every element of it without a choice. And because of the way the U.K. media are, they feel an ownership over you."

Reflecting on when he knew royal life wasn’t for him, he said, “In my early twenties, I had the case of ‘I don't want this job, I don't want to be here, I don't want to be doing this. Look what it did to my mum. How am I ever going to settle down and have a wife and family when I know it's going to happen again?’ Because I know, I've seen behind the curtain. I've seen how this operation runs and how it works. You don't want to be a part of it.’”

He added, “Then once I started doing therapy, suddenly the bubble was burst."

Harry has a new series with Oprah that debuts May 21 on Apple TV+ called “The Me You Can’t See.” He told Dax that Meghan encouraged him to try therapy, and that changed his perspective. “I plucked my head out of the sand and gave it a good shake off and I was like, ‘You're in this position of privilege, stop complaining and stop thinking you want something different — make this different — because you can't get out. How are you going to do these things differently, how are you going to make your mum proud and use this platform to really affect change?’"

He also discussed trying to date in the spotlight, and opened up about a covert outing with Meghan early on in their relationship.

"The first time that Meghan and I met up for her to come and stay with me, we met up in a supermarket in London pretending that we didn't know each other," Harry said. "So we texted each other from the other side of the aisle, people looking at me and giving me all these weird looks, coming up to say 'hi,' whatever. And I was like, texting. It's like, 'Is this the right one?' She's like, 'No, you want parchment paper.' I'm like, 'Okay, where's the parchment paper?'"

He added, "It was nice. Yeah, baseball cap on, looking down at the floor. I don't know how many times you've done that when you're walking down the street trying to stay incognito. It's like 'Whoa, sign post!' 'Oh, someone's dog!' It's amazing what you see. How much chewing gum you see and how many people's shoes you see. It's a mess."

Life is different now that Harry and Meghan have moved to California with their son Archie. He said, "Here, I can actually lift my head and I feel different. My shoulders have dropped, so has hers. You walk around feeling a little bit more free. I get to take Archie on the back of my bicycle. I never had the chance to do that."